


Mask

by KawaiiGroovycat



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa: Rebirth
Genre: Comfort, I wrote this instead of working on my French Project, M/M, Seiumu, Seiyumu, Spoilers, i hope y'all are happy, please enjoy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-21 09:32:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14282034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KawaiiGroovycat/pseuds/KawaiiGroovycat
Summary: “It doesn’t matter what you look like. You are still the same person you were before.”





	Mask

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first Rebirth fic I’ve ever written, so I don’t know how good it really is. Please forgive me if anyone is written OOC. On the other hand, this is for all the fellow Seiyumu shippers in the community, I hope you enjoy it!

 

Ayumu had always been concerned about how his classmates would treat him if they ever found out. Would they just accept it without another word? Not likely. They’d probably flip out. And probably think he was messed up. But it was not like Ayumu cared about that. Nope, scratch that. It was _exactly_ like Ayumu cared about that.

 

There was no way he could’ve kept it a secret for very long. Seishi had already figured out that he was hiding something, and he’d had to provide whatever evidence he could after Kego had been murdered. He’d been backed up against a wall and subpoenaed. He had to cough up his secret whether he liked it or not.

 

He couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud. He’d even turned down Seishi’s offer to reveal it. He would have to do it himself. With a shaky hand, he pulled out his E-Handbook. Shutting his eyes and turning away, he thrust it into the center of the court. Waiting for his worst fear to strangle him, his whole body trembled like an earthquake, and every breath of his grew shorter and more rapid with every passing second.

 

_Ayumu Fujimori...Gender...MALE?!_

 

“Y-you’ve gotta be shittin’ me,” Kazuomi said in disbelief. “It’s gotta be a...a typo! There’s no fucking way Ayumu’s actually a dude!”

 

“How dare you!” Monodora exclaimed “These E-Handbooks are a one-of-a-kind Monodora masterpiece! To think that you ungrateful bastards would accuse me of making such an amateur mistake! Fear not! All of the information in Mr. Ayumu Fujimori’s E-Handbook is 100% accurate!”

 

At that moment, a curtained wall fell around Ayumu, much to his surprise. Black and white hands grabbed at him, almost like they were ripping him apart, and by the time the curtain came up, Ayumu had been stripped of all of his femininity, and his true self was out there for everyone to behold with disbelieving eyes.

 

“S-so, Ayumu _is_ actually a dude?!” the Ultimate Karate Practitioner was taken aback at this new revelation.

 

“I--” Ayumu tried to explain himself, but was cut off my the monochromatic headmaster.

 

“Ding ding ding, right on the money!” Monodora said, cackling. “Ayumu is actually a dude in a dress! Ahahahahaha!”

 

“Oh la la…” Aruma said, licking her lips, “That’s even hotter…”

 

Of course Aruma would find a way to make the situation...uncomfortable. That was just who she was.

 

“Ew!” shrieked the pint sized gourmet. “First you were drooling over Kego, and now you’re horny over an overused anime trope?!”

 

“Overused anime trope?!”

 

"Everyone," Saiji spoke up. "I'm sure Ayumu had his reasons. Therefore, we must not judge him for this."

 

“Peto, nate, ut det mihi in virtute sua proditione, et reversus est ad Ayumu Fujim--” Kasumi began to curse angrily.

 

“Kasumi, enough!” Misuzu scolded. “Ayumu did nothing to deserve this!”

 

“And who said I was gonna listen to any of the shit that comes out of your mouth?!” Kasumi screeched.

 

For once, Misuzu was unable to say anything in response. Once able to keep the spirit medium in check, she was now powerless against her wrath. With Misuzu rendered powerless, nobody would be safe from the curses of the Ultimate Spirit Medium. Ayumu could feel his heart trembling, pushing against his ribcage, begging to be freed from its prison.

 

 _It’s okay, Ayumu._ He tried to reassure himself that everything was going to be okay. _It’s over, they know, nothing to hide anymore._

 

But he couldn’t drown out the voices around him, scorning him, judging him. He could cover his ears and those words could still slip through his fingers and haunt him. Ayumu really did see this coming; he knew that people would be surprised and shocked, he knew that people wouldn’t be so nice about it, and he knew that he would be hurt by their reactions. But Ayumu had severely underestimated the pain that his classmates’ reactions would bring him.

 

“No, that’s wrong!”

 

Everyone turned to look at the mystery novelist.

 

“Again with the catchphrase stealing?” Kazuomi said.

 

“That’s not important right now,” Seishi said to the class. “I know you’re all shocked at this revelation, but what’s really important is that _Mr._ Fujimori is innocent. We have all the evidence to prove that a different person could be the culprit. And Mr. Fujimori knows who I’m talking about, right?”

“Y-yeah,” Ayumu said.

 

“Well then, Ayumu,” Narumi said, each word rotting like month old lasagna, “Who’s the culprit?”

 

“W-well, if we look at the evidence, it all points to…” Ayumu took a deep breath, preparing to sign someone’s death warrant, “Akira. All of the evidence points to Akira.”

 

Akira didn’t respond for the longest time, maintaining an expressionless espression, much like Nico Himuro, and everyone knows what happened to her…

 

“Hello~?” Narumi waved her hand over Akira’s face to try and evoke a response from the NEET. “Earth to Akira? You’re being _accused_ as a _murderer_!”

 

“Yeah, so what?” Akira responded. “Just ‘cuz I’m being accused doesn’t mean I did it.”

 

“Hawa hawa...Marin thinks that Ayumu-kun is telling the truth…*snore*...”

 

“So you’re just gonna believe Ayumu even after he betrayed you all?” Akira countered.

 

“B-betrayed?!” Ayumu couldn’t believe it. Well, maybe he could, maybe he expected someone to say this. But he still felt the full impact of the blow dealt to him.

 

“The proof is in the pudding,” Seishi said. Then, realizing what he said, he chuckled at his own joke.

 

“Actually,” he said, “the proof is in the food. Everybody who was at the feast ate except for Mr, Tsuchiya.”

 

“So?” Akira said. “I wasn’t hungry. Is that a problem?”

 

“Well, assuming that the food was drugged, yes,” Seishi replied. “It is a problem because you would be the only one who was awake. You could have done anything while we were all unconscious. Taking Ms. Osone with you so you could have access to the ice rink, killing Mr. Sakuma in the garden and transferring him to the ice rink, all of that could have only been done by _you_.”

 

“Ayumu could’ve done all that, too,” Akira countered. “He’s probably hiding something... _just like he hid who he really was…_ ”

 

Everything from then on became a blur for Ayumu Fujimori. His breathing grew erratic, his vision blurred, and every voice blended together into white noise. The world around him was falling apart, and he was disconnecting from it. He could no longer feel his hands gripping his podium to keep him from leaving this reality. Now, he could no longer rely on his feminine mask as a shield to block himself off from the cruelty of the world. _Ayumu Fujimori was truly vulnerable_.

 

“This isn’t about Ayumu,” Seishi argued back. “This is about you! You’re the one who killed Mr. Sakuma right under our noses. And now you’re trying to throw us off with stupid arguments that we’ve already debunked.”

 

Akira only looked away and mumbled, “Stupid fucking trap…”

 

Seishi went over all of the details from the very beginning, laying out Akira’s crime in front of everybody. It was as if the crime was happening all over again in front of them, with the way he described everything that happened. Once he had finished going over the details of the crime from the beginning, there was no way anybody could refute anything.

 

“It’s over,” Seishi said. Then, turning to Ayumu, he said softly, “It’s alright, Ayumu. It’s all over.”

 

Ayumu inhaled sharply, grabbing at the fragments of reality floating in front of his eyes. Still shaken up like a snow globe whose snow had not settled down, he muttered, “Let’s vote.”

 

“Upupupupupu...Who’s it gonna be?” Monodora cackled. “Will you make the right choice, or the dreadfully wrong one?”

 

“There’s only one way to find out,” Ayumu said, as he cast his vote.

 

The other students followed Ayumu’s lead and cast their votes. When they had finished, Monodora pressed a button and the big screen at the front of the courtroom switched on, showing all but one vote for Akira Tsuchiya. After Akira had been executed as gruesomely as Nico had been, the students sauntered into the elevator, their feet having turned to big lead blocks. However, Ayumu and Seishi stayed behind.

 

Taking a moment to look around for any nosey students or monochromatic headmasters, of which there were none, Seishi approached Ayumu’s podium.

 

“So, Mr. Fujimori--no, I think I’ll just call you Ayumu,” Seishi spoke up, “Are you alright?”

 

“Oh, y-yeah, I’m fine,” Ayumu’s voice sounded weak, as if it was taking all he had just to reply to the mystery novelist.

 

Seishi’s brow suddenly rose, as if it were a lie detector built into his forehead.

 

“Don’t you remember what I told you back at the chemistry lab? You really do need to get better at lying if you want to survive here.”

 

Ayumu turned around to look Seishi in the eye. His expression hardened.

 

“If...if I had to be honest, then no, not really.”  


“See? Was it really so hard to tell me the truth?” Seishi asked.

 

“I...I knew that things would turn out this way,” Ayumu continued. “If it were possible, I would have just kept it a secret. You see, I-I...never wanted to dress like... _that_ …”

 

“So then, why did you?”

 

“...E-Emi made me do it,” Ayumu said, tripping over his sister’s name. “She never once wanted a brother. I don’t know why, but she just didn’t. I’m skinny, and I don’t exactly have a manly body, so she took that as an opportunity to turn me into her ‘sister’. Mom and Dad wouldn’t have known, since they were hardly at home. And I don’t exactly have many friends because of my talent...Nobody besides me and Emi knew about it until you.”

 

Seishi gave him a solemn nod, as if he was urging Ayumu to continue.

 

“And…” Ayumu continued, “Everybody seemed to like me better when I was like that, and since I couldn’t remove it, I just thought I should leave it alone. Now everyone’s disgusted by me...I thought something like this might happen, b-but...I never expected to be so hurt from all of it.”

 

“No, that’s wrong.” Seishi said, as he caught the skinny boy in an embrace, much to Ayumu’s surprise. “I’m not disgusted by you, and neither are Mr. Rokudou, Ms. Aisaka, and...Ms. Todoroki.”

 

“B-but...Aruma was just...being Aruma, and Saiji and Misuzu were probably just trying to be polite, that’s all.”

 

“But then what does that make me?”

 

“I...don’t know…”

 

“If I _really_ hated you just for that, I would have exposed you without even asking for your consent. But, it doesn’t matter what you look like. You are still the same person you were before.”

 

“Th-thanks, Seishi,” Ayumu said. “I really needed to hear that.”

 

A moment passed. Then another. And then another.   


“Ah!” Seishi exclaimed, when he realized what he was doing.

 

Seishi jumped back, his face as red as the blood that had spewed from Akira’s body (even though it’s pink for us). Ayumu timidly looked down at his own feet, and then he broke the awkward silence.

 

“L-let’s go,” Ayumu mumbled. “We wouldn’t wanna keep the others waiting.”  


“Yeah, you’re right,” Seishi replied, as the two of them speedwalked to the elevator.

 

The whole way up, a blanket of silence had fallen upon them. They stood at opposite sides of the elevator, occasionally sneaking apprehensive peeks of the other. Both of them shared a mutual thought.

 

_What happened back there?_

 


End file.
